President Donald Trump has allegedly questioned why the US would want to have immigrants from Haiti and African nations, referring to some as “shithole countries”.

This is contained in a new Reuters report, weeks after alleged similar comment by Trump triggered outrage.

In December, New York Times reported that Trump, in reaction to the rising number of migrants in the US, said “Nigerians never return to their huts after seeing America and Haitian immigrants to the United States all have AIDS”.

Trump’s latest remarks allegedly made in the White House, came as Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham briefed the president on a newly drafted immigration bill being touted by a bipartisan group of senators.

The lawmakers were describing how certain immigration programs operate, including one to give safe haven in the United States to people from countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.

Reuters quoted one of the sources who was briefed on the conversation said that Trump said, “Why do we want all these people from Africa here?

“They’re shithole countries…We should have more people from Norway.”

The second source familiar with the conversation, said Trump, who has vowed to clamp down on illegal immigration, also questioned the need for Haitians in the United States.

Many Democrats and some Republican lawmakers slammed the president for his remarks.

Republican U.S. Representative Mia Love, a daughter of Haitian immigrants, said the comments were “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values”.

Love called on Trump to apologise to the American people and to the countries he denigrated.

Another Republican Representative, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who was born in Cuba and whose south Florida district includes many Haitian immigrants, said: “Language like that shouldn’t be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn’t be heard in the White House.”